Time travel into an alternate universe where Doctor Who was an American show

The United States is a land of Manifest Destiny. If we see something that someone else isn’t using, we take it. And if we see something they’re using really well, we take that too, and change it to suit our tastes. Doctor Who has become immensely popular in the U.S. since the show’s revival in 2005, and it was perhaps inevitable that someone would attempt to make an American version of the show. But fittingly, given the show’s time spanning nature—and the fact that it was a massive flop the last time someone tried to just directly copy the show in the States—YouTube user Sam Vestey has gone further in his vision of an American Doctor Who, creating an entirely separate history for the show using famous American actors as the various incarnations of the Doctor. Using clips from the actors’ various film and television careers, the video attempts to imitate the stylistic and acting choices of the show’s 50-year history.

A lot of these castings would be wishful thinking, though, even in a magical make-believe world where American TV audiences had the patience for 30 years of the old Doctor Who’s charmingly rambling storytelling. For instance, while Nicholas Cage does share Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston’s off-putting charisma and penchant for leather jackets, it’s hard to imagine him slumming on TV sci-fi. Ditto Gene Wilder, who just wouldn’t have had Fourth Doctor Tom Baker’s stamina for serialized TV. Some of the choices are pretty inspired, though—Kyle MacLachlan, for instance, is a great stand-in for Peter Davison’s younger, more energetic Fifth Doctor. And the casting of Vincent Price as the dashing, arrogant Third Doctor borders on genius.

You could make the argument that Doctor Who—the current version, at least—is already Americanized enough, given the show’s massive success on both sides of the Atlantic. But that argument doesn’t leave any room to see the time travelling phone booth from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure stand in as the TARDIS. And that would be a shame. [via io9]